News of thee week

Bitcoin Celebrated 10th Birthday This Week

The creation of this electronic cash 10 years ago is attributed to a white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for its author. The paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” led to creation a new virtual currency. Originally, the idea was to make a online currency that could be “sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution”. Now a volatile Bitcoin is known well around the world. A year ago it was valued at $6,447 and went high very fast to $19,068 on Dec. 17, 2017. This spike invited attracted a lot of people. As for now Bitcoin was down to around $6,300.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder, unveiled the roadmap for Ethereum 2.0 in a keynote presentation at the Devcon4 conference in Prague Oct. 31. Among constituent parts of the next iteration are a transfer to proof-of-stake algorithm, a project known as Casper, scalability improvements via a process known as sharding, as well as various other protocol enhancements. Prior to the “big launch,” developers will make some final tweaks. These will include stabilizing protocol specifications and cross-client testnets – a testnet integrating at least two implementations of Ethereum 2.0.

The Arbitration Center at Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) has announced the creation of a board for disputes on issues pertaining the “digital economy,” including crypto-related cases. The chamber will be created to hear cases related to blockchain technology, smart contracts and ICO). The framework for the chamber has already been prepared and that arbitrators have been hired. As per experts cited by the newspaper, the number of such cases will increase up to 40 times from 2020-2025. The nation’s courts are facing several challenges due to the significant growth of crypto-related cases, with almost half of them related to smart contracts.

Azerbaijan to Use Blockchain and Smart Contracts in the Legal System and Housing Sector

Chairman of the Azerbaijani Internet Forum Osman Gunduz noted that plans for smart contract introduction in the country’s legal system and housing sector by the country’s justice ministry had “attracted attention”. It was announced that in the future, the smart contracts will be introduced in the field of public utilities (water, gas and electricity supply).

Demand for cryptocurrency appears to be booming across Uganda, a country where 74 percent of Ugandan households are unbanked. Binance signed up 40,000 users in the first week since the crypto exchange launched its local subsidiary in October. The early results suggest a strong interest among Ugandans for purchasing bitcoin or ether.

IExec, a decentralized marketplace for computing power based in France, released its end-to-end trusted execution environment. The technology could be described as “the first Intel SGX scalable solution for businesses to achieve privacy and security in blockchain-based computing”. IExec aims to create a new paradigm for cloud computing: a global and open market where computing power is “traded like a commodity.”